2021 Omaha Mayoral election

[HskrFanMike]

I'm one of this mayor's biggest critics, but I fail to see how this tragedy is any sort of political event. Could it have political ramifications? Maybe, once the Stothert family comes to terms with what happened, but that's their business - not ours.

Dr. Stothert has been, by all accounts, a respected member of the medical community and likely on the front line of a year-plus long fight against biggest pandemic in over a century. No doubt this has taken it's toll on people. The best thing we can do is let his family grieve their loss of a husband, father and grandfather. Politics can stay sidelined for the time being.

[Omaha Cowboy]

Pretty good article from today’s W-H-

“Mayoral candidates
Mark Gudgel

Dawaune Lamont Hayes (signatures still being verified)

Jasmine L. Harris

RJ Neary

Kimara Snipes

Jean Stothert (incumbent)

The ballot for Omaha’s primary election is nearly set.

Voters will head to the polls April 6 to choose among a slate of candidates running for mayor and all seven City Council seats.“..

The complete W-H story link:

https://omaha.com/news/local/govt-and-p ... the-latest

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[Athomsfere]

I'm super hopeful for Neary, personally.

I'm also hoping the best for the Stothert family.

[Garrett]

Massive writeup in the OWH today about the candidates and their positions.

Omaha's race for mayor: A historic third term for Stothert or new leadership for city?

[HskrFanMike]

We may now have a little more insight into why Dr. Stothert decided to end his own life.

https://omaha.com/joe-stothert-was-arre ... d2f54.html

The husband of Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert had been driving his 2011 Infinity SUV 83 mph in a 55 mph zone near mile marker 458 on westbound Nebraska Highway 92 west of Yutan. Two troopers pulled him over about 9:30 p.m. March 4 and noticed signs of intoxication, said Cody Thomas, a spokesman for the Nebraska State Patrol.

Troopers transported him to the Saunders County Sheriff's Office, where they administered an advanced blood-alcohol test. It placed his blood-alcohol content at .165, two times the legal driving limit of .08, Thomas said.

Feel for everyone in the Stothert family. Clearly, the pandemic took it's toll on Dr. Stothert, and it may have completely unraveled for him at the end.

[buildomaha]

So sad to hear. I’m sure it was the final straw in a long period of bad things stacking up in his life.

[GrandpaaSmucker]

This does not even come close to passing the transparency test. In essence it would appear that we have an attempt by the paper to bury this story for the past 10 days. The story is sketchy and filled with holes and missing important details. It is also interesting that the paper appears to have shut the comments off for this story. I have never posted in the comments section of the paper once in my whole life but I like to read what the freaks er I mean peeps got to say! Sure looks like an attempt to create and protect their own little narrative. It would be nice to know when the World Herald found this out. Did the Mayor go down to Lincoln and bring him home from detox that morning? Was the mayor home when this happened? Where oh where is the transparency man

[Garrett]

There's rumors going around in the medical community that he had recently had a Parkinson's diagnosis.

[OmahaFan]

I’m back! Also I’m here to say go Jean Stothert!

[Garrett]

Happy Primary Day!

[GrandpaaSmucker]

Happy Primary Day!

Never have we seen a more lamer Mayoral election then this one. Basically this is a non election. No true or real challengers exist. It is what it is but it ain't no good for the city of Omaha no way no how.

[Omaha Cowboy]

Happy Primary Day!

Never have we seen a more lamer Mayoral election then this one. Basically this is a non election. No true or real challengers exist. It is what it is but it ain't no good for the city of Omaha no way no how.

Maybe the 2009 result was lamer (Jim Suttle over Hal Daub by 280 votes).. But to your point, I agree. It’s a forgone conclusion what will happen in the actual mayoral election next month. And it’s not best for Omaha. But we have to live with it..The quality of true challengers were B list at best. So Stothert for another 4 years is imminent...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[HskrFanMike]

Considering that the challengers basically had to pause their campaigns until the last couple of weeks, it's not a surprise that the mayor cruised tonight. Hopefully, the next four weeks will allow Neary to challenge Stothert's record.

[Omaha Cowboy]

Hopefully, the next four weeks will allow Neary to challenge Stothert's record.

Yes. We can only hope. 5 weeks is a short amount of time considering the monumental amount of ground Neary needs to cover. I just don’t see it happening..

We’ll see...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[PWL73316]

I would imagine a lot of voters just pulled the Stothert lever from not being familiar / comfortable with the other names. Traditionally, the general election leans Democratic compared to the primaries. If Neary can vacuum up all the non-Stothert vote, appeal to the voters who will vote in a month but not yesterday, and siphon off some of the folks who are comfortable with Stothert as a familiar choice, maybe he can make it close.

Now, granted, frankly I don't think any of those will happen, but I don't think it's a completely foregone conclusion.

[GrandpaaSmucker]

I don't think it's a completely foregone conclusion.

The polls and the stats are all showing that she can can not lose as things stand right now and that the election is already over. Stothert's best strategy for her campaign will be not to campaign anymore then she absolutely has to.

[Greg S]

I think it's now a long shot Stothert loses. The margin of victory last night I believe will make it difficult to fund raise. Sounds like he already put 100k into his campaign.

Greg

[omaha79]

No chance Stothert loses. I'd bet every dime I have on it. I don't think there is anything Neary can do to challenge her on her record that will move the needle enough to even make it close, let alone pull off an upset. Neary is not enough of a disrupter to make that happen. If you'd had the right candidate and it was last year, at the height of the civil unrest, maybe. This year and with this opponent, Stothert rolls. She's also going to get a pretty strong sympathy vote after her husbands death. Her commercials even play on that a little with the tone and the wording "She's been there for us...in good times and bad."

[Garrett]

Heath Mello lost the primary by 2 points in a significantly more Democratic leaning environment, and as a much more charismatic/interesting candidate, and still lost the general by 5. No chance in heck Neary comes close. I’d predict a 20 point win for Stothert.

[GetUrban]

I’m wondering if Stothert is running a little stronger now out of sympathy for the loss of her husband. Also, I think Neary didn’t really do a good job of defining many key issues and convincing people his is the one with the answers and leadership capability to move Omaha further ahead at a faster pace, in the same or any significantly different direction. Edit: sorry Omaha79, I repeated your mention of the sympathy vote, but I agree that may be a contributing factor.

[PWL73316]

To be clear I don't think Neary is going to win or has much of a chance. Just saying that things can always change.

[Greg S]

Yeah I think general election will be a double digit win for Stothert.

I think there might have been a bit of sympathy in the voting. You also had all campaigns pausing (although I think it was about a week, 10 days at most). I honestly didn't notice much of a difference. Besides Stothert, Neary is the only one I saw ads for. I am not sure how much traction he is getting for his "Covid Czar" or whatever he calls his Czar. I looked into Jasmine Harris and was surprised how little information she gives on her website about herself. I really don't fully understand career-wise what's she done, or even what her educational background is. To me for a legitimate candidate that is very odd.


Greg

[S.O.Boy]

To be clear I don't think Neary is going to win or has much of a chance. Just saying that things can always change.

Has he said anything about his plans? All I have heard has been empty stir up phrases.

[NEDodger]

I think there might have been a bit of sympathy in the voting.

I don't know about that....I mean, I can't imagine a situation where I thought "I wasn't going to vote for so-and-so, buuuuuuut their spouse passed away so count me in." If anything "helped" with that, it was probably the pause in campaigning by her opponents due to that - which WAS the right thing to do.

I looked into Jasmine Harris and was surprised how little information she gives on her website about herself. I really don't fully understand career-wise what's she done, or even what her educational background is. To me for a legitimate candidate that is very odd.


Greg

I just looked at her website. She's a "policy advocate", whatever that is. No mention of any employers. I guess technically you could be a policy advocate by posting on social media about issues, so this really didn't look good if she's being that vague about touting her "experience".

[bigredmed1]

To be clear I don't think Neary is going to win or has much of a chance. Just saying that things can always change.

Has he said anything about his plans? All I have heard has been empty stir up phrases.

I thought it was just me. Yard signs don’t make a campaign. Tell me what your plans are.

[Omaha Cowboy]

To be clear I don't think Neary is going to win or has much of a chance. Just saying that things can always change.

Has he said anything about his plans? All I have heard has been empty stir up phrases.

I thought it was just me. Yard signs don’t make a campaign. Tell me what your plans are.

Considering the pending beat down in the polls Neary will experience a month from now..it evokes the memory that General Custer had a plan too ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[S.O.Boy]

To be clear I don't think Neary is going to win or has much of a chance. Just saying that things can always change.

Has he said anything about his plans? All I have heard has been empty stir up phrases.

I thought it was just me. Yard signs don’t make a campaign. Tell me what your plans are.

Considering the pending beat down in the polls Neary will experience a month from now..it evokes the memory that General Custer had a plan too ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[lisanstan]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

[S.O.Boy]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

It doesn't help that counties in the state with populations pay for the counties that don't have populations.

[PWL73316]

Unfortunately when your state is built on leeching off of the cities, like Nebraska increasingly is with Omaha and Lincoln, that begins to slow their growth. That sounds like a bad thing, right - the parasite needs a strong and healthy host - but in this case slower growth in Omaha and Lincoln means the rubes maintain total control of the Unicameral for much longer than would otherwise be the case with rapidly growing population centers.

To be clear, here I don't mean that Omaha and Lincoln are wealthier than the panhandle, therefore the panhandle is leeching - no. What I mean is, policies that explicitly treat urban citizens as second-class compared to rural citizens, with the recent property tax changes being a prime example. Farmers are subsidized to heck and back and now they don't even pay their fair share of taxes.

[Athomsfere]

I guess there was a debate last night. Did anyone watch it? Is Neary winning (yet) ?

[bbinks]

I guess there was a debate last night. Did anyone watch it? Is Neary winning (yet) ?

There's one on KFAB next week. Can't recall what day.

[bigredmed1]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

It doesn't help that counties in the state with populations pay for the counties that don't have populations.

Fair point, but Congress is to blame for that. All those square box counties in the SW corner are called “Congressional Counties” because they were literally forced on us by the feds as an experiment to build a county where someone living on the border could drive a wagon and team to the county seat and back the same day. That is not a joke. Most of the small box counties in the Sandhills were also built this way. We have 93 counties and we could easily shrink to 25-30 (NM is bigger than us land area wise and has slightly more people and does well with 27 counties.).

[Louie]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

It doesn't help that counties in the state with populations pay for the counties that don't have populations.

Fair point, but Congress is to blame for that. All those square box counties in the SW corner are called “Congressional Counties” because they were literally forced on us by the feds as an experiment to build a county where someone living on the border could drive a wagon and team to the county seat and back the same day. That is not a joke. Most of the small box counties in the Sandhills were also built this way. We have 93 counties and we could easily shrink to 25-30 (NM is bigger than us land area wise and has slightly more people and does well with 27 counties.).

There was a state bill in like 2010 that addressed this bringing the total to 30. Albeit it didn't go into many specifics as to how the counties would be grouped.

[bigredmed1]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

It doesn't help that counties in the state with populations pay for the counties that don't have populations.

Fair point, but Congress is to blame for that. All those square box counties in the SW corner are called “Congressional Counties” because they were literally forced on us by the feds as an experiment to build a county where someone living on the border could drive a wagon and team to the county seat and back the same day. That is not a joke. Most of the small box counties in the Sandhills were also built this way. We have 93 counties and we could easily shrink to 25-30 (NM is bigger than us land area wise and has slightly more people and does well with 27 counties.).

There was a state bill in like 2010 that addressed this bringing the total to 30. Albeit it didn't go into many specifics as to how the counties would be grouped.

Yep, start with turning the panhandle into two counties. Then the Republican Valley and land south of the Platte could be unified into a west river and east river county. The Sandhills could be divided into 4-5 counties the size of Cherry County. The SE area could be 2-3 counties. The NE could be 3-4 counties. Douglas and Sarpy could be reunited and condensed with Washington Co. Saunders, Butler, and Colfax could be merged. The area around Lancaster co could be condensed so that northern Gage county could condense.

It would light people up, but it would shrink the cost of government in the long term.

[Louie]

I agree that I would actually like to see what the challengers plan for Omaha. My biggest concern is how expensive it is to live here. My husband retired last year during COVID and I plan to follow in the next 5 years. We are currently paying a crazy amount of taxes. When I hear candidates start talking about all the new stuff that plan to give to us citizens, I know that means I'm actually going to pay for it. My property taxes have tripled since I bought my house. Over $6K for a house assessed under $300k. That hurts and it's a lot to pay in retirement. On top that I'm paying state income tax, tax on my husband's military retirement and SSI.

It doesn't help that counties in the state with populations pay for the counties that don't have populations.

Fair point, but Congress is to blame for that. All those square box counties in the SW corner are called “Congressional Counties” because they were literally forced on us by the feds as an experiment to build a county where someone living on the border could drive a wagon and team to the county seat and back the same day. That is not a joke. Most of the small box counties in the Sandhills were also built this way. We have 93 counties and we could easily shrink to 25-30 (NM is bigger than us land area wise and has slightly more people and does well with 27 counties.).

There was a state bill in like 2010 that addressed this bringing the total to 30. Albeit it didn't go into many specifics as to how the counties would be grouped.

Yep, start with turning the panhandle into two counties. Then the Republican Valley and land south of the Platte could be unified into a west river and east river county. The Sandhills could be divided into 4-5 counties the size of Cherry County. The SE area could be 2-3 counties. The NE could be 3-4 counties. Douglas and Sarpy could be reunited and condensed with Washington Co. Saunders, Butler, and Colfax could be merged. The area around Lancaster co could be condensed so that northern Gage county could condense.

It would light people up, but it would shrink the cost of government in the long term.

It makes sense when you have full county governments taking care of less than 1000 people in a bunch of those counties out west...

[PWL73316]

I voted for Stothert as basically a protest vote against the Democrats (of which I am one) making an uninspiring, tired old white guy their candidate because he had a bunch of money, instead of any of the alternatives. I did vote for Sara Kohen, though, with her close primary finish, maybe she has an unexpected chance against Aimee Melton. We did get a flyer directly calling out Melton for her votes against the mask mandate.

[bigredmed1]

I voted for Stothert as basically a protest vote against the Democrats (of which I am one) making an uninspiring, tired old white guy their candidate because he had a bunch of money, instead of any of the alternatives. I did vote for Sara Kohen, though, with her close primary finish, maybe she has an unexpected chance against Aimee Melton. We did get a flyer directly calling out Melton for her votes against the mask mandate.

Same reason I voted dem in the primary against the two elitists running. Voted for the woman who runs Big Mama’s. At least she has to meet a payroll and pay taxes. The Dems threw all their effort behind the two boring white women who looked like they were trying to run for Queen of Dundee.

[Athomsfere]

I voted for Stothert as basically a protest vote against the Democrats (of which I am one) making an uninspiring, tired old white guy their candidate because he had a bunch of money, instead of any of the alternatives. I did vote for Sara Kohen, though, with her close primary finish, maybe she has an unexpected chance against Aimee Melton. We did get a flyer directly calling out Melton for her votes against the mask mandate.

I don't get any of this sentiment.

I'd never make a choice depending on the "old man white-ness" of of the candidates. Either for or against. I also don't get people following party lines.

[Omaha Cowboy]

I voted for Stothert as basically a protest vote against the Democrats (of which I am one) making an uninspiring, tired old white guy their candidate because he had a bunch of money, instead of any of the alternatives. I did vote for Sara Kohen, though, with her close primary finish, maybe she has an unexpected chance against Aimee Melton. We did get a flyer directly calling out Melton for her votes against the mask mandate.

I don't get any of this sentiment.

I'd never make a choice depending on the "old man white-ness" of of the candidates. Either for or against. I also don't get people following party lines.

Agreed..

The worst mistake one can make, especially as it relates to local centric elections like mayor, city council etc, is vote along party lines..

Who cares about party affiliation.. Think about what’s best for Omaha and the metropolitan area, and vote for who you believe the right candidate for the job is...

Ciao..LiO...Peace